The invention relates to trapping, and more particularly to hoops for stretching animal pelts for drying.
Animal pelts, such as beaver, are commonly stretched and laced onto hoops for drying. A very common early method of preparing a hoop was to bend a thin willow or other suitably flexible sapling into a circular shape and tie the overlapping ends together with string or leather strips. This method is described in The Trapper's Handbook (A. R. Harding Publishing Co., Columbus, OH--1951), pp. 10-12, and Fur Trapping by Bill Musgrove (Winchester Press, New York--1979), p. 166, both of which are incorporated by reference herein.
More recent hoops have been made of steel or other metal, a good example of which is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,267 to Doss, which discloses a circular hoop made of a single length of thin bar material bent such that its ends overlap. The overlapping sections are clamped with standard hose clamps, which require a screwdriver or wrench to tighten and loosen. Under field conditions, the use of extra tools is an unnecessary complication and can lead to hand cuts and scrapes, and the hose clamps have a tendency to wear out rather quickly. Further, after such a hoop had been used several times, it acquires a layer of grease and oil from the pelts, which causes the relatively loose gripping hose clamps to slip. In addition, it has been found that the larger sizes of such pelt stretchers necessary to accommodate pelts such as that of the Northern beaver become structurally unstable and can warp into a figure-8, or pretzel, shape when retracted due to the stresses in bent metal. When a pelt is stretched on the hoop, the additional forces imparted by the drying pelt, when coupled with the aforementioned clamp slippage, causes the pelt to dry with wrinkles which reduces the market value of the pelt. Finally, the hose clamps do not limit the extent to which the hoop can be expanded, and thus they permit the overlapped sections to separate, which can be dangerous to the user and which at a minimum requires a time consuming reassembly operation.
The hoop style disclosed by Doss uses a fixed hook portion integrally formed on the end of the overlapping portions. It has been found that this type of guide has a tendency to bind due primarily to hoop warping as the diameter of the hoop is changed. This is particularly true if the hooks are not formed at the correct angle with respect to the remainder of the hoop.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an animal pelt stretcher whose size is easily adjustable to fit various pelt sizes.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an animal pelt stretcher which may be used without special tools.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an animal pelt stretcher which produces flat, unwrinkled cured pelts.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an animal pelt stretcher which does not warp and is thus easy to handle.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide an animal pelt stretcher whose size can be changed with minimum binding.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide an animal pelt stretcher having a clamp which resists slippage during use.